Wild cats in U.S. zoos

The cat family at a glance

Every wild cat belongs to the family Felidae, whose 41 living species show the greatest diversity of fur patterns of any land carnivore. They share retractile claws, slender muscular bodies, flexible forelimbs and teeth and facial muscles built for a powerful bite. All are obligate carnivores, and most are solitary predators that stalk or ambush their prey.

The family has two living branches. The Pantherinae holds the five Panthera species, such as the lion and tiger, plus the two clouded leopards. The Felinae holds everything else, from the cougar and cheetah down to the rusty-spotted cat, which weighs only 0.9 to 1.6 kg (2.0 to 3.5 lb). Only four cats can truly roar; the clouded leopard can neither roar nor purr.

Small cats, specialized lives

The smaller cats show how far one body plan can stretch. The sand cat of North Africa and Asia has long hair on the soles of its paws that insulates them from scorching sand and blurs its tracks. The Pallas's cat of Central Asia's rocky grasslands has the thick, long fur typical of cats from cold places. The fishing cat of South and Southeast Asian wetlands has partly webbed paws and dives for fish.

The serval of sub-Saharan Africa hunts by ear: each large ear can rotate up to 180 degrees on its own, and after listening motionless it can leap more than 2 m (6.5 ft) into the air to pin prey. Across the cat family, the large external ears of small species are especially sensitive to the high-pitched sounds of rodents.

Lynxes and their lookalikes

North America has its own short-tailed cats. The Canada lynx lives in dense boreal forest and depends mainly on snowshoe hares. The bobcat is far more of a generalist, living in woodland, semidesert, swamp and urban edges from southern Canada to Oaxaca, Mexico. Lynxes are among the few cats whose tails fall outside the usual third to half of body length. The caracal of Africa and western Asia, despite its tufted look, belongs to its own genus, Caracal.

What to watch for on a visit

Felid eyes are about six times more light-sensitive than human eyes, and many species are at least partly nocturnal. Activity patterns range from nocturnal and crepuscular to fully daytime, depending on the prey a species hunts. The ocelot, for example, usually keeps close to water and dense cover. Not every small cat is secure in the wild: the fishing cat has been Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List since 2016.